DBC – ‘Dirty But Clean’ – Pierre, can lay claim to a personal history that is a great deal stranger than fiction. Growing up, it was lavish Mexican mansions, Bengal tigers and neighbours who gave their daughters 13 cars as wedding presents. In his teens, things only got stranger. With the passing of his father, … Continue reading
Category Archives: Writers
John Boyne: Recreating Lost Worlds
John Boyne seems to have become a historical novelist despite himself. “At the start of my career I hadn’t planned on writing a series of novels set in the past; it has happened through chance more than design,” he says. The Irish author of the award winning bestseller ‘Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ and more … Continue reading
Jill Dawson: On Lolita and Rupert Brookes
Jill Dawson will tell you, “Novelists thrive on the gaps in a story, the murky places that only imagination can illuminate.” Some of her most recent books straddle the porous line between fact and fiction: her novel ‘The Great Lover’ fictionalises the life of the poet W.B. Yeats once described as ‘the handsomest young man … Continue reading
Sarah Dunant: In the Company of Nuns and Courtesans
“History is largely male and largely the story of those in power,” says Sarah Dunant. Having spent the last few years in hot pursuit of nuns, courtesans and 15th century Florentine women, she should know. Shortlisted for the 2010 Walter Scott Prize, her novel ‘Sacred Hearts,’ is the last in an Italian Renaissance Trilogy that … Continue reading
Ian Rankin: Writing Whydunnits rather than Whodunnits
It’s day one of the Galle Literary Festival, but Ian Rankin is too absorbed in a conversation about British crime fiction to make his way down to the Fort. “Can you imagine Ms. Marple walking into a police station and the cops saying, ‘Oh thank God, Ms. Marple, thank God you’ve arrived to help us … Continue reading
Joanna Trollope: Re-Writing Jane Austen
What would Jane Austen say? Long after she stopped writing them, her novels continue to have a life of their own – in 2009, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was even overrun by zombies. Now, bestselling British author Joanna Trollope has undertaken to produce a 2013 “update” of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ for HarperFiction. While we couldn’t reasonably … Continue reading
Josceline Dimbleby: Serving Up British Cuisine with a Twist
Josceline Dimbleby’s culinary lexicon has only expanded with her travels. In India, she fell in love with the delicacy of Gujarat’s Jain influenced vegetarian dishes and in Turkey it was Tavuk Gogsu, that famous, tender dessert made with milk and chicken’s breast; in Morocco, it was pigeon pie Bastilla that made her mouth water and … Continue reading
Prof. Osmund Bopearachchi: Uncovering the True Face of Alexander The Great
Embossed on the gold coin is the arrogant profile of Alexander the Great. On it, the young conqueror’s features endure: his luxuriant curly hair and the crooked line of his broken nose; his elongated cheeks and large, unblinking eyes. Curiously though, his head is covered in the scalp of an elephant, its trunk curling triumphantly … Continue reading
Louis de Bernières: “I Don’t Want Readers Who Can’t Concentrate.”
Could he write a book that rivalled ‘War and Peace’? When Louis de Bernièrespublished ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ in 1994, he was 40, nearly the same as age as Leo Tolstoy was when the latter released his iconic novel in 1869. Though many tumultuous decades separated the two men, Louis’s ambition was to produce a novel … Continue reading
Juliet Nicolson: The Great Silence that followed The Perfect Summer
Seated on a veranda in the heart of Galle Fort, Juliet Nicolson is feeling the heat. Despite the inevitable discomfort, the sweltering weather is actually ideally suited to a conversation about her first book. ‘The Perfect Summer,’ is a work of non-fiction, a retelling of the events of the summer of 1911 through the eyes … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 